Time Management...

She should have left the house fifteen minutes ago. She knew that. She knew when she woke up this morning that she needed to leave the house by 10:30 at the latest but she should really leave by 10:15 to make sure she wasn't late. Now it was 10:45.

But if she went just a little bit over the speed limit and was lucky on all of the lights and found parking right away she would still be fine. 

Of course she hit all of the lights at red and was behind every slow driver in the city. Not just doing the speed limit drivers, but let's go 5 mph under the speed limit drivers. At this rate she shouldn't even bother looking for parking. She should just write it off as a loss and go back home. 

But she had promised herself that she would go on this interview. It was a foot in the door. A chance to work in TV. But time management was one of the skills called out in the job description. She needed to be organized and have good time management skills. 

Well she kind of did. 

She was great at figuring out all of the ways to make up time when she was running really late. Like if she took the exit before the tunnel she could take the back streets downtown instead of fighting freeway traffic for 3 more stops. Sure, if she got caught behind a bus or at a train crossing it would all backfire, but if she didn't, she'd shave precious minutes. 

And she was really organized. If you counted having multiple items stashed all over as organized. For instance, she had three pairs of sunglasses, a car pair, a purse pair, and a house pair. And sometimes she remembered to put them all back where she got them from so she didn't end up with three sets in the car and none in her purse. 

If she was late would it be better to say, "Oh, I have 11:30 at the time, not 11:15. I wonder where our wires got crossed?" And try to push it off on possibly a miscommunication or should she blame traffic or just apologize and let the chips fall where they may? 

Blaming traffic was always a good one. Traffic was always bad. But because traffic was always bad a good time manager would have left at 10:15 just like she originally thought she should. 

Blaming it on crossed communication was a risk. A good admin assistant would have every copy of the email chain still on their computer. Showing that it was her that just got it wrong even after confirming that the interview was set for 11:15. Then even if she somehow got the job she would have already made an enemy of the person who she really needed to be on the good side of. Always make friends with your boss's admin. Always. 

She slid into a parking space at 11:10. How quickly could she walk from the parking lot into the building to get there in time but not work up a sweat. Walk with purpose but not look rushed? It would have helped if she had grabbed her bag the first time she got out of the car and hadn't had to double back to get it. But what if they expected her to provide another copy of her resume. That happened all the time, even though they had it, obviously, or they wouldn't have wanted to interview her. 

The clock in the lobby read 11:17. Maybe they would just assume it ran fast? Or give her the five minute grace period that really everybody should get. It was only decent to give up to 15, if she was being honest. 

After being directed to the right office and checking in with the very same admin assistant she had been considering throwing under the bus just minutes before it was 11:22. So even the five minute decent buffer was out. Well fuck. 

She sat down to wait. 

And she waited.

And waited. 

And waited. 

Finally the office door opened and her potential boss called her name. 

At 11:45. 

"I am so sorry to make you wait, it has just been one thing after another this morning."

"It's okay, it happens to everyone." She smiled and held out her hand to shake. 

But she already knew she wouldn't take the job, she hated it when people wasted her time. 

(prompt: write a story about a character running late for a job interview)

Aside...

When I was interviewing people for a bookkeeping position at the ad agency I had a candidate show up 15 minutes late. When she got there I was on a call with a client and she had to wait for 5 minutes for me to wrap it up. She actually told me how rude it was that I wasn't ready to start when she got there. She did not get the job.